Cut the Crap: The Need to Do More to Address Agricultural Methane Emissions

The author asserts that the U.S. agricultural sector produces more methane than the oil and gas sector, primarily through enteric emissions from ruminants and manure management. Current efforts, such as anaerobic digesters and feed additives, are described as insufficient or potentially counterproductive. The document criticizes the Biden Administration's Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan (MERAP) for relying on voluntary partnerships and urges the use of the Inflation Reduction Act's funding to implement mandatory monitoring, reporting, and reduction strategies, including reducing herd sizes and improving grazing systems.

• Agriculture is a larger source of methane emissions than the U.S. oil and gas sector, with the primary drivers being enteric emissions from cows and sheep and wet manure management systems in the dairy and swine industries.
• Existing methane reduction strategies are deemed ineffective; anaerobic digesters do not address enteric emissions and may incentivize larger herd sizes, while feed additives like seaweed only reduce a small fraction of emissions and raise sustainability concerns.
• The Biden Administration's Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan (MERAP) is criticized for relying on voluntary partnership programs and existing tools for agriculture, unlike its approach to the oil and gas sector which includes updated regulations.
• The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides nearly $20 billion to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for greenhouse gas reduction, which the author argues should be used for mandatory measures such as methane capture, reduced herd sizes, and improved grazing.
• Industrial agriculture lobbying efforts have attempted to block the EPA from requiring monitoring or reporting of agricultural methane and have used congressional riders to prevent funding for such reporting programs.

APA

Apfel, C. (2022). Cut the Crap: The Need to Do More to Address Agricultural Methane Emissions. Earthjustice. https://earthjustice.org/experts/carrie-apfel/cut-the-crap-the-need-to-do-more-to-address-agricultural-methane-emissions

Chicago

Apfel, Carrie. Cut the Crap: The Need to Do More to Address Agricultural Methane Emissions. Earthjustice, 2022. https://earthjustice.org/experts/carrie-apfel/cut-the-crap-the-need-to-do-more-to-address-agricultural-methane-emissions.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Apfel |first1=Carrie |title=Cut the Crap: The Need to Do More to Address Agricultural Methane Emissions |publisher=Earthjustice |date=17 August 2022 |url=https://earthjustice.org/experts/carrie-apfel/cut-the-crap-the-need-to-do-more-to-address-agricultural-methane-emissions |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{apfel2022cut, author = {Apfel, Carrie}, title = {{Cut the Crap: The Need to Do More to Address Agricultural Methane Emissions}}, publisher = {Earthjustice}, year = {2022}, month = aug, url = {https://earthjustice.org/experts/carrie-apfel/cut-the-crap-the-need-to-do-more-to-address-agricultural-methane-emissions}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }